The moment the words left Lawson's mouth, the atmosphere in the Command Center flipped from sub-zero silence to a volcanic eruption!
Aside from Edith, who remained standing, everyone else rose in a synchronized explosion of fury.
Dodge, Katie, and Ester, their foreheads bulging with veins, snatched up their nearby alloy chairs. Their eyes blazed with a murderous light.
"'Temporarily suspended'? You dare say that so casually, you bastard?!"
Edith, who had been submerged in tragic grief just moments ago, didn't even bother with a chair.
Her eyes turned cold as frost, and without warning, she leaped into the air. A lightning-fast roundhouse kick grazed the tip of Lawson's ear.
BOOM! A massive, terrifying dent appeared in the alloy wall behind Lawson.
That kick nearly sent Lawson's soul to the afterlife. He abandoned every shred of "Demon King" dignity; his survival instincts hit maximum capacity as he performed a textbook "Great Escape."
With everything he had, he slid between Dodge's legs, scrambled to his feet, and used his body weight to ram the door open, fleeing in a frantic blur.
At that moment, only one thought raced through his mind:
These berserk teammates are a hundred times more dangerous than any Shadow General!
Meanwhile, in a desolate outskirt.
Mist rolled in like heavy slabs of lead.
A low, beast-like mechanical growl echoed from the depths of the fog. A heavy motorcycle, boasting a wild aesthetic of raw industrial power, tore through the mist and ground to a halt on the scorched permafrost.
A man as imposing as a steel tower dismounted.
His heavy spiked boots struck the dry earth with a sharp, cold metallic ring. He wore a thick leather trench coat over denim, the spikes on his boots glinting sharply in the dim light.
The man slowly removed his helmet, revealing a stern, square face.
His neatly styled red hair looked as dark and thick as dried blood in the fog.
Most terrifying were his eyes—glowing with a sinister red light, they flickered like radar, hungrily capturing every vibration in the air.
Suddenly, his hard lips curled into a cruel, twisted grin.
He chuckled, his voice a low vibration.
"This place... the stench of a veteran player is so thick it makes me want to vomit."
He closed his eyes again, as if savoring the aroma of stale data.
A moment later, his eyes snapped open, his voice dropping like a death sentence from the abyss.
"FOUND YOU! This scent... it smells like ten years of accumulated, rotting garbage. Disgusting, yet unmistakable!"
He erupted into a bone-chilling, maniacal laugh and remounted his iron beast. The killing intent in his eyes surged.
"In that case, I, the 'Cleaner,' shall wipe you out—completely, cleanly, and forever!"
With a violent roar of the engine, the heavy motorcycle transformed into a shadow of destruction, screaming toward the distant town as the mist swallowed him whole.
Back at the base, Lawson burst through the Command Center door and slammed directly into someone. He looked up, panting, and saw the unmistakable flow of silver hair.
"George? What are you doing here?" Lawson gasped, his heart still hammering.
George's eyes were sharp, his tone colder than ice shavings.
"The soundproofing in that Command Center is trash. I heard everything... hunting the General, and that mountain of rare materials."
The ambition to grow stronger flickered in the depths of his eyes. He stared at Lawson. "Take me with you. My crowd-control skills are far superior to Dodge's brute force. I guarantee I can keep him motionless from start to finish."
"No!" Lawson refused flatly. "We must follow the 0.7-second rule! It's a hard-coded mechanic. One mistake and we all wipe. By the time you finish your slow-ass chanting, he'll have evolved through three phases!"
"Are you stupid?" George interrupted rudely. "My halberd-staff can pre-store magic! As long as I charge it beforehand, never mind 0.7 seconds—I can trigger it in 0.1!"
Before they could argue further, the "furious mob" from the Command Center arrived at the door.
However, the moment they saw the superstar George, the explosive atmosphere vanished.
To save face in front of the celebrity, everyone performed a masterclass in acting: Dodge and Katie casually tossed their "murder weapon" chairs into the corner with a loud thud; Edith retracted her wall-shattering leg and elegantly brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
Lawson, meanwhile, had scurried behind the "silver-haired rooster" George like a chick hiding from a hawk.
A few moments later, everyone sat down again, now with George included.
After hearing about the "can't find the boss" dilemma, George's face radiated pure annoyance.
He tapped the table and sneered, "What? You have the strategy, but you're sitting here in jail because you can't find the BOSS? What are you all doing? Group-failing?"
"Oh? And what's your brilliant idea, 'Old World Superstar'?" Ester mocked, resting her chin on her hands and glaring at him with provocative eyes.
Everyone expected George to be silenced by the jab, but instead, he threw out a pragmatic solution that left them speechless.
"Lawson, has armor-smithing made you brain-dead?" George glared.
"Weren't those Hawk Recon Drones you developed designed for top-tier scouting? If it were me, I would have mass-produced them and released them for a carpet-search long ago. Why shrink back here and waste time?"
The words hit Lawson like a sledgehammer, shattering his mental block. He slapped his forehead.
"Of course! I still have nine hundred and ninety-nine of that guy's cores in the Vault from my farming days! If I replace the drone cores with his own resonance cores and tweak the scanners, they'll act like bloodhounds, sniffing out the General's disgusting aura! Thanks, George! That's a stroke of genius!"
Lawson didn't waste a second. He charged into the Vault, grabbed bags of heavy BOSS cores, and dived into the Armor Factory.
With MAX-level Forge technology and his SSS-grade dexterity, Lawson completed the entire process—from blueprint modification to assembly—in just three hours.
Dozens of "Steel-Seeker" drones, gleaming with a cold metallic luster, stood in perfect formation.
The five-man team stood on the highest point outside the base. The cold mountain wind ruffled their hair, but it couldn't shake the anticipation in their eyes.
Lawson stood at the precipice, his {Spatial Smart Band} glowing as he summoned the drones row by row.
With a solemn expression, he swiped his modified control tablet, issuing the final command:
"Go! Find that old friend hiding in the shadows... and drag him out!"